Experience Poetry in an Everyday Way with Ted Kooser and Friends

Poetry DVD and resources available through the NE Library Commission

In 2005, the Nebraska Library Commission partnered with NET (Nebraska Educational Telecommunications), Nebraska Arts Council, Cooper Foundation, and Woods Charitable Fund, Inc., to develop and distribute a DVD, Poetry—Capturing the Moment, with U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser & Friends (©2005 NET Foundation for Television). Nebraskan Ted Kooser, the 13th U.S. Poet Laureate, shows us the beauty in the ordinary through his poetry. This educational DVD provides multiple venues for educators, students, and all of us to experience poetry in an everyday way. Each user can discover, learn from, and enjoy the individual pieces at random, or a teacher or librarian can easily access specific sections to use in the structured lesson plans in the Resources section. The DVD includes a 30-minute segment entitled Ted Kooser’s Poetic World, a rich in-depth look at Nebraskan Ted Kooser in his role as the 13th U.S. Poet Laureate and his quest to touch everyone’s heart through poetry. Also on this DVD:

• Poets Reciting Their Own Poetry—In April 2005, NLC and the Nebraska Center for the Book, in collaboration with NET Television, organized Plain Poetry, a poetry reading with Ted Kooser, William Kloefkorn, Dominique Garay, Mary Strong Jacson, Lyn DeNaeyer Messersmith, and Mikah Tacha, to promote the art of poetry in Nebraska. All of their recited poems are found in this section. Also includes Writers Write, a taping of William Kloefkorn’s workshop with Lincoln middle school students.
• Poet’s Roundtable—40 minutes of discussion between the six Nebraska poets listed above.
• Resources—This section contains very specific items to assist the classroom teacher and learner with poetry lessons. There is a list of topic-related websites, six lesson plans with accompanying videos, transcripts of the poems as well as biographies of the DVD poets, and credits of the funders and people involved in making the DVD.

We hope that this tool will help librarians, media specialists, reading and writing groups, and book clubs across Nebraska to increase recognition and appreciation of Nebraska poets and their work, raise awareness of different types of poetry, encourage young people to use poetry to help make sense of their world, and to celebrate our own Pulitzer Prize-winning Laureate Ted Kooser. The DVD is available for loan from the Nebraska Library Commission: Ask A Librarian. It may also be available at your local library.